PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Chuan Xu
AU  - Qian Li
AU  - Olga Efimova
AU  - Xi Jiang
AU  - Marina Petrova
AU  - Alia K. Vinarskaya
AU  - Peter Kolosov
AU  - Nikolay Aseyev
AU  - Kira Koshkareva
AU  - Victor N. Ierusalimsky
AU  - Pavel M. Balaban
AU  - Philipp Khaitovich
TI  - Identification of Immediate Early Genes in the Nervous System of Snail <em>Helix lucorum</em>
AID  - 10.1523/ENEURO.0416-18.2019
DP  - 2019 May 01
TA  - eneuro
PG  - ENEURO.0416-18.2019
VI  - 6
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.eneuro.org/content/6/3/ENEURO.0416-18.2019.short
4100  - http://www.eneuro.org/content/6/3/ENEURO.0416-18.2019.full
SO  - eNeuro2019 May 01; 6
AB  - Immediate early genes (IEGs) are useful markers of neuronal activation and essential components of neuronal response. While studies of gastropods have provided many insights into the basic learning and memory mechanisms, the genome-wide assessment of IEGs has been mainly restricted to vertebrates. In this study, we identified IEGs in the terrestrial snail Helix lucorum. In the absence of the genome, we conducted de novo transcriptome assembly using reads with short and intermediate lengths cumulatively covering more than 98 billion nucleotides. Based on this assembly, we identified 37 proteins corresponding to contigs differentially expressed (DE) in either the parietal ganglia (PaG) or two giant interneurons located within the PaG of the snail in response to the neuronal stimulation. These proteins included homologues of well-known mammalian IEGs, such as c-jun/jund, C/EBP, c-fos/fosl2, and Egr1, as well as homologues of genes not yet implicated in the neuronal response.